Hi there! All of my pictures today were taken in the two minutes of sunshine that we were blessed to have! 🙂 I hate to make the weather such a terrible topic, so I’ll just mention that the rain has persisted. Oh sure, we’ve had some breaks here and there. I even managed to go on a fairly dry bike ride the other day. But boy has it rained in between! You know who loves that, right? HYDRANGEAS! They are looking mighty fine. The roses are the main flowers unhappy with the wet situation.

The sunflowers continue to bloom and show off their beautiful faces. The dahlias are starting to pick up the pace of their blooming (not all have bloomed, yet, though). Three of the blooming varieties (American Dawn, Totally Tangerine and Copperboy) were planted specifically for creating sunflower arrangements. I used them for the first time today and was delighted with the result!

Otherwise, I’ve been trying to get in and tidy up the garden, a little at a time. I’ll get there – eventually! Do join me as I partake in the Six on Saturday meme, hosted by Jim at Garden Ruminations.

I hope you enjoy the tour!

In Peace,
Dana

1 – Dwarf little lime hydrangea. These guys are so happy with the wet weather we’ve been having! They do not get big, which is exactly why I chose them. They start out white-green, then go more lime and they now have shades of pink. They did not look this nice last year, when we had very little rain and they were being watered by me.

2, 3 & 4 – (from top right) Buddleia BUZZ ‘Dark Pink’ Butterfly Bush, Delphinium ‘Shelby’ and Monarda Fireball (bee balm). I gave the dwarf butterfly bush a super hard pruning this year. I was doubtful for a while whether it would bloom. But blooming it certainly is! It is a lovely fuchsia color, offset nicely against the yellow potentilla flowers. I know I’ve mentioned the ‘Shelby’ delphinium before, but it is still blooming beautifully, so I had to give it another shout out. Finally, the Monarda ‘fireball’ is a new favorite. It smells lovely (I have a thing for scented plants!) and attracts bees – hence, it’s nickname ‘bee balm’. The color is supposed to be red, but it is more of pinkish hue of red.

5 & 6 – A flower arrangement of sunflowers and dahlias. How fun is that? And what a great use of a pottery biscuit jar (we’ve never put cookies in it). The other flower I hadn’t mentioned is the Verbena Bonariansis (groups of tiny purple flowers with long stems). Dahlias: Totally Tangerine, Copperboy and American Dawn. The coloring on the American Dawn is a lot more coppery than the coral I was expecting – but I do love it! I like to grow sunflowers that have smaller flower heads, which are more manageable in arrangements. There is a nice mixture of sizes here, and colors. And both sunflowers and dahlias have a nice long vase life!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Did you have any favorite flowers?